Semiconductor memory devices, including flash memory, typically utilize memory cells to store data as an electrical value, such as an electrical charge or voltage. A flash memory cell, for example, includes a single transistor with a floating gate that is used to store a charge representative of a data value. Increases in storage density have been facilitated in various ways, including increasing the density of memory cells on a chip enabled by manufacturing developments, and transitioning from single-level flash memory cells to multi-level flash memory cells, so that two or more bits can be stored by each flash memory cell.
In some cases, when an error condition for a flash memory device is detected (e.g., an unrecoverable codeword is read from the flash memory device, the computational resources required to recover a codeword exceed a predefined threshold, or a count of program-erase (PE) cycles for the flash memory device exceeds a threshold value), the entire flash memory device is considered to have failed. In turn, all data stored on the flash memory device must be replicated and stored on a different flash memory device. This whole-device replication discards any remaining life or value associated with still-working portions of the device that is considered to have failed, consumes resources, and places undue strain on remaining flash memory devices.